


Lady

by anticyclone



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 00:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: If anyone were to call her anything, it would be Lady.





	Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



If anyone were to call her anything, it would be Lady. She hears it. She does hear it. They whisper it.  _ Junk Lady.  _ It used to just be Lady.

(When she thinks that, she knows it's wrong. No one is called  _ just  _ Lady. But if there were more syllables to follow, they have long been lost to her. If she tries to remember, something shining flares in her vision, and then she's walking across the heaps to find it.)

The things she finds are nice but they aren't what she is looking for. They are never what she is looking for.

"I have to go," a young girl says to her, and "I can't stay here," pleads a boy, trying to tug his hand away from hers. A dark-eyed child stares open-mouthed as she hands them a particularly nice teddy bear. It has a ribbon 'round its neck.

The heaps go on for as far as her eyes can see. The children, the boys and the girls, and occasionally older ones - with ashen hollows for eyes and heaving chests - always try to leave before they have the chance to see them.

Lady piles things into their arms. She piles things onto their backs. A few of the children - hardly ever the older ones - stay. They take the things she gives them and they wrap them up tight. Sometimes she sees them wandering the heaps, later. Lady doesn't try to walk their way. It takes a lot of energy to climb a heap.

A few of the few have tried to pluck a treasure from her back.

Lady knows where the soft spots on the heaps are.

There are… things… under those spots. The heaps have grown on top of a place that Lady will not visit. But she does know how to get there.

The problem with the rest is that they can outrun her. Most things can outrun her. It would be easier to catch them, if she put something down. But if she puts something down then how would she find it again? And she is here to find something. She  _ remembers  _ being here to find something.

She'll know it when she sees it.


End file.
